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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#621

Post by randomNumber7 »

margalabargala wrote: post #334
randomNumber7 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't stand out from an LLM then why can't it do your job? Also, not using LLMs might be a red flag. I wouldn't want a dev that is not open to this technology...

> Also, not using LLMs might be a red flag. I wouldn't want a dev that is not open to this technology... The person you're replying to is a senior, not junior candidate. For junior devs who are still learning, LLMs are a great force multiplier that help them understand code faster and integrate new things. For senior devs, LLMs are a maybe-optional tool that might save a couple hours per week, on a good week. I would…

It is the opposite. Juniors can only solve toy tasks with chatgpt.

Someone with experience can first think through the problem. Maybe use chatgpt for some resarch and fresh up your memory first.

Then you can break up the problem and let chatgpt implement the stuff instead typing everything. Since you are smart and experience you know what chunks of code it can write (basically nothing new. only stuff you could copy pasta before if you had somehow access to all code in the internet yourself).

TLDR: It is way faster to use it. Especially for experienced programmers. Everything else is just ignorant.

Re: I automated my job application process

#622

Post by CalRobert »

belinder wrote: post #351
MrMember wrote: post #314

I'm seeing a lot of back in forth in the comments between hiring managers and employees discussing who is more responsible for the current situation, but from the perspective of someone looking for a job what should I be doing? I've been pretty aggressively looking for a job for the past six months or so. I have 10+ years of professional software dev experience so I've mostly been looking at senior dev positions. I h…

I was hiring manager for 3 positions about 4 months ago and the amount of fake applications out there was mind boggling to me. I would say 90% were either entirely fake or had the exact same generated ai text. It got so bad that we started only looking at resumes that had a working LinkedIn link. Also after so many bad resumes I started being very forgiving for the ones that didn't fully match the job requirements if…

What if we don’t like linked in? Is it effectively mandatory?

Re: I automated my job application process

#623

Post by benhurmarcel »

biztos wrote: post #312
bovermyer wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this approach. In this field, unless you're hiring a junior engineer, you can have a reasonable expectation that a potential candidate will fly out for an interview even if it's a 100% remote job. If they refuse, well, there's a chance it's just because they can't afford to. The chance is far greater, though, that you dodged a bullet.

What do you mean by "can't afford to?" Because you can't possibly mean you think candidates are going to fly out for an interview at their own expense. Traditionally (i.e. pre-Covid) flying out a senior candidate was the standard signal that both sides were taking the process seriously. And for competitive hires, the quality of the hotel and the restaurants they were taken to and the seniority of the people who joine…

For seniors maybe but for juniors it’s not rare to have to fly out in your own dime unfortunately.

For finding my first job I had to pay for a few trips myself (flights and hotel).

Re: I automated my job application process

#624

Post by wodenokoto »

MrMember wrote: post #314

I'm seeing a lot of back in forth in the comments between hiring managers and employees discussing who is more responsible for the current situation, but from the perspective of someone looking for a job what should I be doing? I've been pretty aggressively looking for a job for the past six months or so. I have 10+ years of professional software dev experience so I've mostly been looking at senior dev positions. I h…

My advice is to contact recruitment agencies.

HN hates recruiters, especially the cold calling kind on LinkedIn, but it has worked great for me. Every other job of mine has been through a recruitment agency and they have been responsible for the highest pay increases and they have been better to talk to about available budget for the role than the employer

Re: I automated my job application process

#625

Post by maccard »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #303
maccard wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that that had been my experience hiring in a 10 person company and a 30k person company, and that the “suggested” AI screening isn’t happening - it’s probably that your application is the same as the other 300 applications that went in.

What's the time frame here, what's your sample size for applying to jobs yourself, and what's your sample size for doing hiring (ie how many different companies)? I'm guessing that your personal sample size is extremely limited - not just in quantity but also in geographic area. Of course my guess could be way off, but what you are saying is definitely the exception to the common narrative nor does it match what I've…

I’ve been hiring in anger since 2018, applied for 1 job (sent about 10 applications) and hired over three companies. First was an 800 person company that grew to 2000 while I was there, second I was hire number 2 for a startup and I hired the full 15 person engineering team, and a decent chunk of the non engineering product/test roles into. 50 person company . Third (current role) I’ve been involved in hiring about 8 people in the last 6 months that I’ve been here. It’s a 45 person company, but a subsidiary of a 30k multinational whose hiring practices we use.

> but what you are saying is definitely the exception to the common narrative nor does it match what I've seen.

As an anecdote, I posted on who’s hiring here, and we used a separate job requisition for HN, (this was my last job where we went from 2 -> 15 people). We got about 30 applications in the 7 days following that on that req, and of those 30, only one came even remotely close to meeting the requirements on the JD - we were looking for someone with a few years experience in a Java like language, in a Europe/US time zone. Most of the candidates failed both of those criteria, hard. My point being that people who are frustrated with their situation are likely to be more vocal than someone who isn’t.

I’ve spent enough time on HN reading about topics I know a lot about, and seeing people confidently claim how X is easy or if they just Y, and they’re totally wrong. I know a decent amount about working on the hiring side - it’s been a core component of my job for the last 6 years. I’ve worked with recruiters both internal and external, spent far more time with greenhouse than any engineer should ever have to do.

My feeling is that there’s far less sophistication going on, and the dearth of human responses (which is problematic) lets people make up their own reasons as to why it’s not working when the reality is that there’s just a hell of a lot of applicants for every single job.

Re: I automated my job application process

#626

Post by austin-cheney »

bane wrote: post #451
MrMember wrote: post #314

I'm seeing a lot of back in forth in the comments between hiring managers and employees discussing who is more responsible for the current situation, but from the perspective of someone looking for a job what should I be doing? I've been pretty aggressively looking for a job for the past six months or so. I have 10+ years of professional software dev experience so I've mostly been looking at senior dev positions. I h…

It's absolute insanity. Something has to give, or we're about to see some big changes in how hiring is done. I don't want to retype my recent experiences, but I have a thread from about 6 weeks ago that goes into my specific details here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42137229 I was in a good position so I could take my time, but I honestly don't know what I would have done if I had needed a position quickly.

Software should have some universal competency baseline, like a license. If AI resume spamming is that straw that breaks the camel’s back then so be it.

The best defense against AI would be a license number that identifies a person uniquely, provides their relevant job history from a database, proves some minimal common competency baseline, and confirms conformance to some ethical norm against known liabilities.

Re: I automated my job application process

#627

Post by Amezarak »

belinder wrote: post #351
MrMember wrote: post #314

I'm seeing a lot of back in forth in the comments between hiring managers and employees discussing who is more responsible for the current situation, but from the perspective of someone looking for a job what should I be doing? I've been pretty aggressively looking for a job for the past six months or so. I have 10+ years of professional software dev experience so I've mostly been looking at senior dev positions. I h…

I was hiring manager for 3 positions about 4 months ago and the amount of fake applications out there was mind boggling to me. I would say 90% were either entirely fake or had the exact same generated ai text. It got so bad that we started only looking at resumes that had a working LinkedIn link. Also after so many bad resumes I started being very forgiving for the ones that didn't fully match the job requirements if…

Well, that's some handy information. I had no idea any employer would care one whit about my LinkedIn, or that a personal hobby section was considered anything but totally superfluous and irrelevant.

I suppose I am supposed to actually fill out my LinkedIn too?

Re: I automated my job application process

#628

Post by JonChesterfield »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #109
JonChesterfield wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun variant: - scrape linkedin and apply to jobs based on the result - take the responses with "positive sentiment" and then contact the linkedin person Service is now connecting people with companies that already thought their generated CV was close enough to what they want. Call this a "recruitment agency".

> - scrape linkedin and apply to jobs based on the result That was my first thought when looking for jobs, but maybe I am naive, wouldn't this break their ToS?

I mean scrape it for candidates as well as jobs, generate CVs for the candidates, apply to the jobs with the generated CVs, contact the candidate after a positive hit. And yes, I expect that's completely against their terms of service.

Re: I automated my job application process

#629

Post by redmajor12 »

celdon25 wrote: post #386
hibikir wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's not even enough: A few weeks ago I had to interview someone who had what appeared to be a realistic profile. Everything that came out of their mouth was from chatGPT It was suspicious, but the ruse became clear when they shared the wrong screen, so we could see his prompt, and how everything we said was being read in. At this point every remote internet checklist has to include checks for humanity, because…

Anyone affected by this and in the US might consider calling or writing to their congressman. The time to do that is now when the demand is high to bolster jobs but low for excessive laws. Nobody innocent is going to be wronged if this is made into a crime or otherwise regulated to put a stop to. The fake job applicants are only siphoning resources from the economy at the high expense of all other parties involved. T…

But this chaos fits Big Tech's claim that there are not enough American workers, so they can then turn around and onshore H1Bs from the hiring manager's hometown back in the old country.

Re: I automated my job application process

#630

Post by shortrounddev2 »

captainmuon wrote: post #617

When I see posts like this, I think either I'm doing something wrong or they're doing something wrong. I never wrote hundreds of applications. When I'm looking for a job, I investigate a couple of companies where I'd like to work, write a handful of thought-out applications, and generally get at least a response, in most cases an invitation for an interview. Granted, I have a university degree but I guess many people…

There is an abundance of tech workers. There is a shortage of good tech workers. It is incredibly difficult, at the resume stage, to tell the difference. When you post a job online, you get hundreds of applications in a few days.

Imagine you are a good tech worker. You applied to a company, along with 200 other people. Your resume gets swept into the trash because they had to automatically delete several applicants and your resume somehow didn't make the cut based on a simple heuristic, or maybe you got unlucky and they just delete the bottom half without looking at them

What do you do now? Do you spend a lot of other time and repeat this process next week, or do you just lower your standards and apply to 200 other companies?

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